The present invention relates to a phased-array coil and a receive signal processing circuit, and more particularly to a phased-array coil having a highly homogeneous sensitivity region and a receive signal processing circuit capable of suitably processing receive signals received at such phased-array coil.
National Publication No. 2-500175 of Japanese Patent Application (counterpart U.S. Pat. No. 4,825,162) discloses an example of a phased-array coil for use in a conventional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) apparatus in its accompanying FIG. 4. Such conventional phased-array coils have poor homogeneity of the coil sensitivity characteristics in the coil axis direction. This leads to disadvantages in imaging of head and abdominal parts, which require a homogeneous sensitivity region.